Samuel L. Jackson has described the decision to join the cast of The Legend of Tarzan as a 'no brainer'
Samuel L. Jackson
Jackson will be back on the big screen this summer as he teams up with filmmaker David Yates for a new interpretation of the Tarzan legend. It is set eight years after the end of the original story with Tarzan living in London with Jane.
Jackson is set to take on the role of George Washington Williams and reveals that he has always loved this story and grew up watching a string of different Tarzan movies.
Speaking to Collider, the actor said: "It's one of those movies that I'm doing because it's the movie I would have gone to see if I was a kid. I loved Tarzan movies when I was a kid. I watched a bunch of them on television and at the movies, so it was really a no-brainer for me.
"But upon reading the script I realized the historical significance of what we were talking about in this film and shedding a light on what actually happened in the Congo with King Leopold and how that was the first sort of Holocaust that actually happened on the planet, all the Africans that he killed in his quest for diamonds, ivory, and rubber."
A great cast has been assembled for the film as Jackson stars alongside Alexander Skarsgård, Margot Robbie, Christoph Waltz, John Hurt, Jim Broadbent, and Djimon Hounsou.
This is also the first time that we have seen Yates in the director's chair since the huge success of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2. The Legend of Tarzan is the first of two Yates movies to be released this year; the second comes in the form of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them in the autumn.
2016 is another busy year for Jackson as we are also going to see him star in Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children. He has just completed work on Kong: Skull Island and is now shooting xXx: The Return of Xander Cage. The film sees him reprise the role of Agent Augustus Eugene Gibbons and reunite with Vin Diesel.
The Legend of Tarzan is released 8th July.
Tagged in Samuel L. Jackson Tarzan